You sit up with him when he’s crying. You try rocking him to sleep. You talk to him in a soothing voice. You have to work the next day. He falls asleep when it’s time for you to get going. You buy extra expensive baby food, because the boy gets cramps and gas from the regular stuff. You don’t mind. Even though you are dog tired you play with the boy every day. You lie on the carpet with him, even though it makes your knees and hips hurt.
You find all kinds of silly ways to make the boy laugh. You point to every item in the house and repeat the names of the things again and again and again, until you feel like you are going a little nuts. You crave adult conversation, but ever since you’ve become a parent your friends, who have no children yet, avoid you. They’re not interested in what you are passionate about most now. Namely that your son prefers apples over bananas and that he enjoys rock songs from the sixties and that you love it when he grabs your fingers and looks at you, all content.
You pick the perfect kindergarten for him. You get a small bike for him. In summer you get squirt guns. You teach him how to run down stairs without falling. You fanatically train him to cross a street in a safe way. You find children’s books for him. You invent stories for him. You carry him in your arms when he is tired, sometimes for miles.
You have stopped buying certain items you liked buying for yourself, so you have more money to spend on him. When he turns one you get an expensive helium balloon in the form of the number one. When he turns two you get one in the form of a number too. The same when he turns three. The whole year he asks if he will get a helium balloon shaped as the number 4 for his next birthday. 99 percent of the time you speak to the boy you speak in a voice you have never heard yourself use. It’s apparently the voice you get when every cell in your body is sending love to a little human being. The cutest, most lovely thing you have ever seen.
One day an Israeli soldier comes, as you are walking in a group of people who have just been kicked out of their houses, the soldier, who can’t be older than 21, snatches him from your arms, and bashes him against a wall, with his head, and the boy dies in less than three minutes.
There is no life for you after that.
Only darkness and self-blame and hatred and self-hatred.
There is only pain where the love for the boy was.
The love was gigantic and so the pain is gigantic.
You join Hamas and as soon as you can you run up to a tank and hug the tank with bombs attached to your body.
In the stats you are a terrorist.
(Note: Even though this is clearly a story, I stress that this is indeed a fictional story. Story-telling is a time-tested medium through which humans process traumatic events. A story comes with a structure that allows for catharsis and emotional release. These stories are written to allow people to balance themselves when confronted with the horrors in our world. They will be bundled as ‘Love stories from Gaza’. They are essentially intended as a gift to people who value human life. All stories feature characters who love and care deeply and purely. They are written to show that love is stronger than hatred. It’s also my own way of keeping my sanity in a world that looks like it’s completely lost its moral compass, if it ever had one.)
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The Confessor 